Lynching memorial soil collection opportunity for reconciliation

Mark your calendar for Wednesday, December 11, at the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue. Here’s why.

On November 9, at the 2019 Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Bishop Eugene Sutton of Maryland challenged Episcopalians to step up to the work of racial reconciliation and reparations.

In his address on November 8, Bishop Scott Mayer said, “ I believe we are moving from understanding ourselves as “going to church” to understanding ourselves as “being the church . . . Christianity is moving from presenting itself as a “system of beliefs,” which is what we’ve done since the Enlightenment, to presenting itself as a “way of life.”

He was referring to a way of life rooted in the way of love – the love of God and the love of our neighbor, all our neighbors.

On Wednesday, December 11, 2019, Episcopalians in Fort Worth have an opportunity to answer the call of these bishops.

We can do so by showing up to support and stand in solidarity with our African American neighbors as they begin the first part of a process to bring a Lynching Memorial to Tarrant County — a Soil Collection from the lynching site.

About the event

At 5:15 pm on Wednesday, December 11, 2019, at the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue in Fort Worth, members of the the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice and others will conduct a Soil Collection Project at the site of the 1921 lynching of Fred Rouse.

This event is part of their work with the Equal Justice Initiative and the National Lynching Memorial and Museum to create greater awareness and understanding about racial terror lynchings, and to begin a necessary conversation that advances truth and reconciliation. The Coalition hopes eventually to erect a monument commemorating the lynching and recognize the traumatic era of lynching and its generational effect on communities of color.

NOTE: An incorrect date for the event was announced at Diocesan Convention. The correct date is December 11.

In preparation for the Soil Collection event, learn more about A Death on Samuels Avenue: The Lynching of Fred Rouse on December 2, at 5:30 – 7:30 pm, at the Shamblee Library, 959 E. Rosedale, Fort Worth, TX.

Background

The Equal Justice Initiative [EJI] “has documented more than 4,400 African American victims of racial terror lynching in at least twenty states across America between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to 1950.

EJI is working with communities to commemorate and recognize the traumatic era of lynching by collecting soil from lynching sites. This soil collection project is intended to bring community members closer to the legacy of lynching and to contribute to the effort to build a lasting and more visible memory of our history of racial injustice.

“The main goal is to create a moment of reflection and connection, in a site near and related to the location of the lynching, as a kind of memorial most lynching victims never received. Many volunteers have expressed that they were deeply impacted by the opportunity to intimately engage with the personal story of one lynching victim, and that did not require knowing that they were standing in the exact location where the lynching was committed.”